


Dark Bloom

by ladymdc



Series: Rhack Attack 🥊 [12]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Forbidden Love, Handsome Jack & Timothy Lawrence are Siblings, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Obsessive Behavior, Persephone Goes Willingly With Hades (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Possessive Behavior, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:28:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24762349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymdc/pseuds/ladymdc
Summary: For love, I will handle your sins, and for justice?For justice, I will show you mine.
Relationships: Handsome Jack/Rhys (Borderlands)
Series: Rhack Attack 🥊 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790767
Comments: 22
Kudos: 73





	1. Untouchably Perfect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swearwollf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swearwollf/gifts), [ruins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruins/gifts).



> Thank you both for all of your kindness & support. I don't know that I would have peeked into the Rhack fandom &/or stuck around if it weren't for the both of you. ❤️ 
> 
> This work will be a series of vignettes focusing on the relationship between Handsome Jack (Hades) & Rhys (Persephone), and the resulting repercussions. The myth will be blended with the Borderlands universe & I will make notes to clarify as necessary in an attempt to prevent any confusion. I really enjoy exercises in being concise & my hope is to generate a dreamlike/fairytale sort of element to this work despite the dark connotations.

His name was Rhys. 

He did not have the language to express what it was exactly that had drawn him to the man before him. 

His features were aristocratically sharp, almost fiercely so, and the suit fit him a little too well. He looked cruelly beautiful. He looked exactly like everything he was supposed to be, but his eyes… 

His eyes weren’t dead. There was a spark in them that seemed almost intrinsic to who he was. 

They were bright and mismatched like his own; only one was deep brown and the other ochre. The latter glowed faintly with golden light. They stared back at him with curiosity— full of questions of his own. 

No anger. No fear. 

Just…  _ life.  _

Without warning, he smirked faintly. “So, Handsome Jack, for someone also referred to as ‘The Unseen,’ I feel like I’ve seen you more than anyone else alive at this point,” Rhys said, voice almost deceptively soft. 

“Everything ends. Everything lives, then everything dies, but if I want more, I take more.”

Rhys hummed. “I have to admit, it’s nice having someone interested in me for a change, and not Atlas.”

“What makes you think that’s the case?”

“As I said.” Another tiny smile touched his mouth. “I feel like I’ve seen you more than anyone else alive at this point.”

Then Rhys extracted a single flower from the bouquet resting on the table between them. He leaned forward, arm extended.

Jack could feel the warmth of his skin beneath his fingers as he accepted the delicate, white flower. The action feeling like a violation in a way taking lives never had. 

_ Pure.  _

That was what he was. 

The word that had escaped him up until now. 

Jack wondered at how he had resisted the impulse to take Rhys the first time he had seen him. He had been untouchably perfect, standing in the unforgiving light of Pandora. Welcoming the heat in a way Jack never would. Around him, shooting up from the cracked white-gold sand of the badlands had been hundreds of tiny, white flowers as slender as Rhys. 

The wind had whipped through his hair, the flowers bowing before him, and Jack had remained frozen. Unwilling, for once, to destroy.

Then Rhys had bent down to gently pluck a single bloom before stepping away as lightly as possible. Walking like a wraith over the ground as if to avoid ruining whatever miracle had touched the small stretch of desert.

After that, Jack dreamed of them together. He destroyed worlds, and they stood over the ashes. Others, he spared simply to give them to Rhys and see him smile. However, in every one, Jack offered him half his kingdom, and they ruled side by side. 

Each dream made it more difficult to not have him.

“That’s probably true,” Jack murmured, his gaze dropping to the dark blooms tattooed onto the side of Rhys’ neck.

He wanted to discover where the roots ended. He wanted to learn the story behind the parts of Rhys that did not belong to him, the ECHOeye and his prosthetic arm, then explore the parts that did. 

Jack trailed his gaze over his lips and wondered what it would be like to taste them. He twirled the stem between finger and thumb before bringing it close to his face and breathing in. 

He ate it. 

It tasted how it smelled. Subtly sweet and soft. Vaguely familiar. Almost dark. 

“Did you like it?”

“Perhaps a little too much,” Jack said, giving him the barest hint of the truth. 

Rhys did not smile, but there was something in his eyes that felt like another step in his conquest. Then ignoring the dried blood on his hands and the wake of bodies Jack had left behind him as he stalked across the gardens toward him, Rhys offered the God of the Dead another bloom. 

“If you want more,” he said. “You’ll take it anyway.” 


	2. An Admission

He didn’t need to take, Rhys would come willingly.

Jack had expected a fight. Nearly craved one in the face of this accursed  _ need.  _ But his demand was not met with resistance.

The man from his dreams— his husband, his king— looked at Jack as though he had waited for nothing else but this moment to arrive. As if it had been inevitable. Almost an admission of something more powerful between them than his own selfish designs. 

The tension coiled inside him instantly faded away. It was as close to peace that Jack had felt since first laying eyes on Rhys.

It was rare that anyone was able to calm him. 

Rarer still that anyone dared to approach.

When Rhys moved, it was slow and deliberate. The sky above them darkened. Midnight blue turned to ink, stars came and went underneath the stones of Skywell. His frame grew taller in darkness, his eyes brighter. Jack desired to welcome his presence. He wanted to reach out and trace his fingertips along the sharp line of his jaw. To discover if there was a faint hint of stubble or if his skin was as impossibly smooth as it looked. But Jack only knew how to destroy, to tear things apart without knowing how to piece them back together. 

He did not wish to inadvertently do that to him. Until Jack knew him in full— understood Rhys better than he did himself— it was pleasure enough to have him close. 

Rhys did not share his hesitations. 

Their fingers brushed together again as he reclaimed the flower. “If we’re going to go, we should,” Rhys said, tucking the bloom into his jacket pocket. 

The touch lingered. 

A closeness that was brand new and yet something always known. 

“Are you worried?”

Rhys gave a tired smirk before pulling away. “I imagine things would be far simpler if I was worried in the way expected of me, but as much as I hate it, I’m well versed in the game. I know where my place on the board is exactly, and if that’s what this was about,” he shrugged his mechanical shoulder, “it would be damaged by now.”

Jack rolled his jaw at the implication. His gaze falling to the silver filament designs glimmering in the blood-red of his arm. Every nerve in his body humming with a single thought:  _ violators. _

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.” 

“I am.” 

His finger twitched against the trigger where the weapon still loosely hung at his side and resisted the urge to ask. Demeter was probably the only other individual in the universe who understood the necessity of death as well as Jack. 

Without a doubt, every single person responsible, no matter how great or small their involvement, was already dead. 

“What are you worried about then? Tell me.” 

“Would I be a prisoner or your guest?”

“Neither,” Jack said. “You will be my equal.” He spoke with a certainty he could not prove. Jack had nothing more than dreams as evidence. 

But he knew, irrevocably, it was the truth. 

“Then, perhaps, in the end, my mother will forgive both of us.” There was hope in his voice, and Jack could see it in his eyes, could feel it in the way Rhys took one more step, bringing them even closer together. 

Not even inches apart.

“This alone will be seen as an act of war,” Jack told him.

“Not if you remain unseen,” Rhys replied solemnly, then his ECHOeye went dark. 

It was only when they were on his ship, the door sealed behind them and the hum of the aether coming to life beneath their feet, that Rhys looked even remotely troubled. 

“I forgot my bouquet,” he said. “Is there a garden on Helios?”

_ Jack destroyed, removing that which was unworthy. Rhys restored, his steps raising life from the barren ground. They kept an endless cycle of life and death.  _

_ Their kingdom was shared, and they would reign as equals. _

“No, but for you, there will be.”

Rhys’ lips curled up just so, and Jack fell further still. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, I'm taking liberties on the personification of the gods in this work. However, to provide some clarification on how I am fusing the lore:
> 
>   * Hades (Jack): the God of the Dead and the King of the Underworld; also known as "The Unseen One." While all souls were allowed to enter into The Underworld freely, none could ever escape.
>   * Persephone (Rhys): the Goddess of Vegetation, especially grain, and the wife of Hades. She was seen as a protectress in the after-life.
>   * Demeter (Rhys' mother): the Goddess of the Harvest and presided over grains and the fertility of the earth. She is also the goddess of sacred law and the cycle of life and death.
>   * Aether (what I'm using in lieu of 'drive core'): is one of the primordial deities. Aether is the personification of the "upper sky". He embodies the pure upper air that the gods breathe, as opposed to the normal air breathed by mortals.
> 



	3. Closer Still

Days turned into weeks; strangers into something indefinable. 

They learned about one another, discussing everything and nothing. Jack pretended to care about the heir of Atlas. Listening to him drone on about the empire neither one of them was interested in, but he was patient. It was all Rhys had been raised to talk about. Once he had gotten it all out, Jack convinced him to talk about himself.

The man interested in flowers and life. Who enjoyed working on tech that could terraform entire planets. Someone that could see the unforgiving nature of Jack’s mind and want to stay. 

Jack told him about Angel. 

About her mother. 

The need to destroy. The need to purge that which was undeserving. 

It should be impossible for Rhys to understand, to see the universe as Jack did and not fear him. Yet he did, and they grew closer still. 

At his request, Jack arranged for Rhys to meet Angel. They hardly saw one another. Each encounter made him angry. Each encounter made her hurt.

She felt the rage in his blood and wondered how he survived it. He saw the regret in her bones and wondered why it seemed so familiar.

Death and destruction, the only things they knew anymore.

Until Rhys. 

From the upper level, Jack oversaw their introduction in the garden. He had forgotten how pale and thin and close to death herself his daughter appeared. There was something unequivocal in Angel’s power. Something beyond her control that inspired reverence. But that was not why Rhys kneeled before her instead of sitting beside her. 

He spoke, she listened. 

A quiet moment passed between them. 

Then she nodded, and Rhys gave her a flower. Angel cradled it in her hands; she smiled brighter than a star, and it blinded with its radiance. A promise of something beautiful, but was gone all too soon.

Jack wondered whether he should feel guilty. But as always, the guilt never came. Later, he told Rhys. 

He didn’t speak. He simply took his hand and helped Jack carry the weight of it.

It was the most Jack had ever shared with anyone. 

On the other side of the galaxy, war began to rage between Atlas and Maliwan. Rhys would never know if the only world that existed was the one between them, but Jack knew firsthand what locking something away to protect it could do. As a result, he found out before Jack could decide how to tell him. 

Rhys showed up at his penthouse, wearing only sweats and a t-shirt. His hair hung in his eyes, and he looked soft. Vulnerable in a way he never allowed himself to. 

“I was going to tell you,” Jack said. “I promise.” 

“I believe you. I saw this coming. It’s just— I’m not used to—“ Rhys gestured at his head. “Feeling so disconnected.”

Jack nearly smiled at that. “We can fix that. All you had to do was tell me.” 

Rhys blinked. Then he took a step toward Jack, raising his hand.

“Can I?” 

Hesitantly, Jack nodded, and Rhys moved gingerly as if afraid he would change his mind. He felt the jut of his cheekbone through the mask, right over the deep, terrible scar that Jack hid in his vanity. Then Rhys’ hand shifted to touch  _ him, _ his jaw, his neck, and Jack almost forgot to breathe. 

But Rhys’ exploration did not stop there.

With the same cautious precision, he raised his mechanical arm and weaved both hands into his hair. Rhys’ thumb brushed against one of the metal clasps, and he went very still as Jack flinched. 

“Should I apologize?”

Jack wrapped his hands around Rhys’ waist and felt his heart begin to race. 

“No,” Jack said, and they grew closer still. 

“I had a dream like this once,” Rhys murmured. “Or one that started like it.” 

“Was it a good dream?” 

“It was.”

Something hot and primal uncoiled within him, something Jack had been so determined to hold back, but having him near was no longer enough.

He kissed Rhys. 

His mouth was soft and sweet, and he clung to Jack like a vine. He needed Rhys, needed him so badly, but Jack forced himself to take his time. He forced himself to kiss him slowly, to savor each second with his body, slender and delicate, pressed to his. 

It was morning. It was the first one they had ever truly shared. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hecate (Angel): the goddess of magic, witchcraft, the night, moon, ghosts & necromancy. After the mother-daughter reunion she became Persephone's friend & companion in the Underworld. She is also the goddess of crossroads, taking on the role of guardian of not just roads, but of all journeys, including the journey to the afterlife.


	4. No Turning Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (no, I did not forget this fic existed ♥️✨)

Jack handled the programming himself. He was far too paranoid to consider anything else. 

When it was finished, Rhys seemed surprised at the invitation to review the data. 

“I don’t need to see it.”

Jack heard the unspoken conclusion in his words: that Rhys would trust him right into his grave. He made a promise then, one that was silent and to himself, to keep Rhys safe, no matter what, and knew he would do whatever necessary to uphold it.

“It will be fine,” Rhys said, speaking with the same confidence he had used when they were preparing to leave Promethea. Though Jack could discern the flicker of worry in Rhys’ eyes, this time, he was not concerned that it was caused by himself. 

“It will be.” Jack moved between Rhys’ legs where he was sitting on the desk, and gave him a fleeting kiss before clicking the drive into his port. 

There was a second that seemed to stretch for an eternity before Rhys abruptly tensed, every muscle drawn tight, then began to shake as the reprogramming took over. Jack held Rhys tight against his chest as he gasped. This was normal, Jack knew, but that did not make it any less unpleasant to experience. 

When it was over, Rhys collapsed into him, tucking his face into the curve of Jack’s neck. He could feel Rhys shivering, his body wracked with the aftereffects. Jack let his hand smooth down Rhys’ back and noticed that his breathing still felt wrong: irregular and thin. 

His fingers where they were gripping Jack’s shirt, were now squeezing with vise-like intensity, and Jack slid a hand into Rhys’ hair.

“Hey, kitten… You’re alright.”

“I know that,” Rhys said quietly. “I promise.” 

He was warm, and he was there, and he was safe, but that knowledge was not enough. Jack took Rhys’ chin in his hand and forced him to meet his gaze. 

His eyes were clear, untroubled, the soft golden glow there and illuminating the infinitesimal space between them. But the look on Rhys’ face made something lurch in his chest. Then Rhys took Jack’s jaw in his hands and kissed him.

It was something new, something dangerous and unexplored.

Jack gently pulled away. It was quick, almost gone in an instant, but he caught the hurt that accompanied the action.

“I need you to want this. All of it. Everything it means.” 

A warning and invitation all at once.

“I do,” Rhys said. “I just didn’t realize you were unaware of that until today.” And then Rhys kissed him again. He kissed Jack like they had been together for their entire lives instead of only a few short months.

Jack could not say how, but they made it to the bedroom. 

Every touch was full of purpose. Jack discovered where the dark blooms tattooed into his skin ended. Then he set about memorizing the parts of Rhys he had always wanted to explore and then all the ways he responded.

He liked it when Jack used teeth, the scrape against his lips drawing a soft sound from his throat. 

He liked being underneath him. Surrounded by him. Being pressed together until there was no room for anything but each other.

There was something different about Rhys like this, he sensed. Something possessive in the way he held Jack that made his blood pound harder through his veins.

Jack’s name fell from Rhys’ lips as his body tightened around him, both of them poised on the verge of collapse.

_ I love you.  _

It was the only thing Jack could think as he came undone.

Though the words remained unspoken, Jack had felt them with every touch, almost as real as the body that slept beside him. It was a beginning and an end at once, and there was no turning back. No pretending Jack could ever be the person he was before Rhys. 

He wasn’t going to let him go. He wasn’t going to let things fall apart this time. 

He would not lose him. 

In his restlessness, Jack got up and went to work on something new. Something that would always keep Rhys with him.

Secret and safe.


	5. A Taste of Truth

The war raged on. 

But for Jack, there was so much more than just work filling his days that he barely acknowledged its existence. There was calmness, shared joy.

Peace even. 

Sleeping was not as much of a burden as it once was. His body and mind were no longer conquered by exhaustion. Jack sank into the promised dreamscape willingly because when he woke, it was not to emptiness and full of distorted rage for it. Instead, he woke with the knowledge that his dreams were reality because Rhys was always there now, beside Jack in bed.

Pure was still the correct descriptor for him, but it was not precisely how Jack had imagined. Rhys was something else entirely. He was, in fact, the caress of sunlight against skin— he was the promise of new life. But underneath, in the heart of him, Jack sensed that warmth could be a thing of destruction. Blazing and vengeful, as unforgiving as Pandora’s star. 

He was something that could devour darkness. 

He was hope. 

But fire still burned.

They had shifted in their sleep. Jack was on his back, limbs sprawled out haphazardly, and Rhys was tucked against his side facing away. Carefully as to not disturb him, Jack curled around Rhys. He had dedicated unfathomable amounts of time to the study of him. And it was the rhythm of Rhys’ heart under the palm of his hand that sustained Jack, not his own.

Jack could feel the moment that Rhys woke, and their hands found one another, fingers tangling together. Rhys used his thumb to stroke Jack’s skin. It was a familiar pattern, and not for the first time, Jack wondered if Rhys was spelling out something that he could not bring himself to say. That he wrote it on Jack’s skin instead and hoped that he could feel it. 

Hoped that Jack would know it without having to say a word, just as he so often did himself. 

“I dreamed I had to leave.”

Rhys spoke like he already had, as if some higher power had already decided it. But he wouldn’t, Jack told himself. He couldn’t.

“It was just a dream,” Jack said, but his words lacked the same conviction. 

Rhys kept stroking his skin until his heart no longer pounded in his chest. Until it felt like it should.

“It’s just a dream,” Rhys agreed eventually, speaking softly as if willing himself to believe it.

“No one is allowed to make you do anything you don’t want to,” Jack said, aware that it was not entirely up to him to decide what it was that Rhys wanted.

As if sensing this, Rhys shifted in Jack’s hold to face him. He was beautiful, just as he always was, just as he always had been. He could never be anything less, but Rhys wore the same look he had the day they met, the same intensity shining in his eyes. 

“I never want to leave you.”

Jack palmed his face and kissed him. With their lips pressed together, he could taste the truth of it, but Jack also heard what Rhys didn’t say. 

He pretended to be soothed when he deepened the kiss. He pretended to be comforted even though Rhys never said he would always stay.

And still, the war raged on. 

News of Maliwan’s latest conquest arrived at Helios just as it did on Promethea. There was nowhere in the universe Jack could have escaped it or any of the others, but he was forced to acknowledge it for once. 

As always, he couldn’t help but think of the first kiss they shared, that despite the war ignited by Rhys’ disappearance, he still had chosen Jack. He had chosen to yield to his own desires time and time again since leaving behind his old life. It was what Jack reminded his brother of when he called to remind Jack over half of their sector was in ruins. 

“You gave him to me,” Jack said. “We had an agreement. You said if he wanted to go with me, he could.”

“We are  _ losing _ this war,” Tim reiterated. “Rhys might not want what’s rightfully his, but he wouldn’t want to see it all fall to Maliwan either.”

“I’m not forcing him to stay.”

“You would be if you kept this from him.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zeus (Tim): the King of the Gods and the god of the sky, weather, law and order, destiny and fate, and kingship. Zeus conspired in the abduction of Demeter’s daughter & conceded to return Persephone when Demeter refused to let the earth fruit.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks for reading ♥️


End file.
